“Really?” I forced my bite down and followed it with a drink of milk. My throat felt suddenly tight.
“Yes, really.”
“Thank you so much.” I rounded the table and hugged her from behind. Pressing a kiss to her cheek, I said, “You’re the best.”
“Don’t you forget it,” she said. “Now, go call your friends.”
Now, Piper, Jovani, and I are smashed together on the couch, a bowl of Mom’s caramel popcorn balanced on my lap and a teen slasher flick on the screen. It’s our third movie of the afternoon, and we’re dangerously close to taking root in the couch cushions. Piper is sleeping, her steady breathing almost lulling me off, too.
Jovani’s phone lights up, and he bends forward to grab it off the table, nearly knocking the popcorn bowl from my lap in the process. “Shelly?” I ask.
“Nah.” He swipes his screen then taps a few quick words out. He drops it to the couch and reaches across my shoulders, shaking Piper. “Hey, Pip, we gotta go.”
“Mmhhuh?”
“It’s time to leave.”
“Wait!” I drop the popcorn bowl onto the coffee table and pause the movie. “Where are you two going?”
“Um…” Jovani is staring at his phone again, furiously tapping at the screen. “We have… something…”
“We told Shelly we’d help her with… uh, something her mom has going on. Sorry, we thought the movies would be over by now.” Piper looks at my ear, unable to make eye contact. She is possibly the worst liar under the sun.
“What’s going on?”
Before they can answer, the doorbell rings, and they both freeze. It’s only a second, just long enough for me to notice, before they are in full motion again.
“Guys?”
The doorbell rings again, and they both stare at the door, pointedly. I sigh. “Fine,” I say. “Don’t tell me.” I head for the door and open it without bothering to peek out the window.
My heart stops when I see who’s standing there.
“Hey,” Cameron says, staring at the ground somewhere near my feet.
“What are you doing here?”
“We invited him.” Piper steps up next to me, Jovani following on her heels.
“You did what?” But I can’t bring anger into my voice.
“It’s time,” Jo says. He kisses me on the cheek and whispers in my ear, “Don’t be too hard on him.”
My two best friends leave, and I’m left standing in the foyer with the boy next door.
“Anna,” Cameron says after a minute of silence, “I’m so sorry. I—”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I shouldn’t have—”
“It is okay,” I say, and as the words leave my mouth, I know they are true. I forgive him. I’m not sure when I did, but as I look at him now, I can’t be mad at him anymore. And I don’t want to be.
“Thank you.” He steps toward me, moves like he’s about to grab my hand, but changes his mind and stays just out of reach. “Come with me,” he says. “I have something to show you.”
“Can’t.” I look up the stairs, where Mom and Dad are in bed, watching their own movie. “Grounded for life. Mom didn’t take so well to our little trip.”
“I know.” He steps closer. All it would take to touch him would be to reach a hand out, brush my fingers with his. I don’t. “I talked to your dad. It’s okay.”
“You talked to Dad?” I hear Jo’s car drive away from the house. “That was you texting Jovani, wasn’t it?”
He nods. “Please, come,” he says. “I promise it’ll be worth it.”
My body screams at me to take his hand and be led wherever he wants to take me. Standing this close to him, I miss him so much the ache is physical. But I stand rooted to the spot, suddenly nervous in a way Cameron has never made me feel before. What if I walk out that door, let myself trust him again, and it ends badly? I can’t go through all of this again.
The door hangs open, the night air calling to me. I can’t move.
“Anna, sweetie?” Mom calls from the top of the stairs. I freeze.
“Yeah?”
“Just go. It’s all right.”
I look at Cameron in disbelief then up the stairs to where Mom stands, out of view. “Um, okay,” I say. I turn to Cameron, say it again. “Okay.”
We don’t go far. Cameron walks down my sidewalk, me alongside him. The air between us is charged with want and longing and fear. At the end of my sidewalk, he takes a left, crosses in front of the lawn, then heads up his own driveway. I stop next to his truck, ready to have him take me wherever we are going, but he continues to the back gate.
“You coming?”
I nod, confused, and walk to him. He reaches a hand out, hesitantly. Without giving myself time to think, I grab his, linking our fingers. He pushes the gate open.
His backyard has been transformed. Gone is the wide expanse of lawn and ever-present badminton net. In its place is a random network of kiddie pools set against one another in a lopsided spiderweb of puddles. Each pool has a float in it—Styrofoam noodles and blow-up whales and children’s float rings. At the far end of the yard, against the wooden privacy fence, hangs a white sheet.
“What is this?”
Cameron’s face is alive, lit with excitement. He guides me to a small table set up against the side of the garage then lets go of my hand. On the table, two bottles of Dr Pepper sit beside a bucket of popcorn and a box of Hot Tamales. A small, black projector is at the end of the table, hooked up to Cameron’s laptop. He clicks through the screens on the computer, carefully shielding it from my view.
“Welcome,” he says, turning around to face me, “to the Andrews’ dive-in.”
“The what?” I turn and take the scene in, slower this time, and the pieces fall into place, realization hitting me. A picture pops up on the screen against the fence, Cinderella’s castle set against the Disney-blue background. Two lawn chairs stand in front of the biggest pool, and we walk to them, Cameron carrying the snacks with us. Settling into my chair, I drop my feet into the cool water of the pool and grab Cameron’s hand again, squeezing fiercely.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
His answer is overwhelmed by the opening notes of The Lion King, the animated sunset creeping up the screen. How many times did we watch this movie as kids—me, Storm, and Cameron lying in a row on the living room floor, drinking Dr Pepper and sucking down Hot Tamales? It was our go-to activity, the companion to rainy days or what we did when one of us was too sick to play outside.
“This is perfect,” I say.
He squeezes my hand. “I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“I know.”
“And I love you.”
Tilting my chair into his, I lay my head on his shoulder. My hair falls over my face, and he brushes it behind my ear, his hand lingering on my jawline.
“I love you, too.”
He kisses the top of my head, and we sit like that, the arm of my chair pressing into my ribs, but me too close to him to care, as the movie unfolds in front of us.
The popcorn goes untouched, the Dr Pepper forgotten. But we share the box of Hot Tamales. I suck on them like I used to as a kid, letting the sugar melt on my tongue, ignoring the urge to chew them until they’ve turned clear and flavorless. We eat them until my mouth is numb, and then I chew a couple more.
Simba is singing “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” when my chair starts to tilt. Cameron’s legs shoot out, splashing in the pool as he tries to find purchase, but it’s too late. We’re falling faster than our balance allows, the metal chair arms clanging against each other. I let go of him, trying to sit up, and pitch the other way. Cameron hits the ground, hard, a deep moan pushing out of him, and I hang suspended just long enough to know I’m going down, too.
The water is cold, a shock against my skin and in harsh contrast to the warm August night. I’m soaked. Sitting on the ground, the water is up to my rib cage. I shiver. Then the laughter hits me,
sudden and strong and uncontrollable.
“I’m glad you find my pain so funny,” Cameron says, but his voice holds a laugh as well.
“Shut up. I fell, too.”
He works his way out of his chair, standing slowly. He shakes his arms and shrugs, rolling his head from side to side. “Ouch,” he says.
“Sorry. I didn’t realize you actually got hurt.”
“Wanna try that with a straight face?”
I shake my head. “Sorry, can’t.” Laughter overtakes me again.
Cameron holds a hand out for me. I grab his, but don’t let him pull me to my feet. Instead, I jerk at his arm. He pitches forward, caught off guard, but stabilizes before falling in. “Nice try,” he says.
“Come on.” I tug again, gentler this time. “What’s the fun of a dive-in if you don’t actually get in?”
He lets me pull him down to the pool. He climbs in gently, releasing my hand so he can crawl on hands and knees across the shallow water, approaching me. I lean until my back is against the side of the pool, then stop, letting him come closer still. My heart gallops, my skin tingles, and I open my mouth, my eyes drifting shut in anticipation.
The kiss doesn’t come. He hovers there, mouth inches from mine, so close I can almost taste him. Instead of closing the gap, he sits back in the water, and reclines against the far side of the pool. He drapes an arm across the inflated plastic, a clear invitation. I take it and settle in next to him, our heat warring with the cold of the water.
My toes are turning prunish when the first drop of rain falls. On screen, Simba is eating grubs with Pumbaa and Timon, trying to forget his own heartache. I think of Storm, watching this movie, yelling at the screen for the young lion to go back to his life. She could never understand why he stayed away, why he couldn’t face the pride after his father’s death. I can hear her, voice loud and high-pitched in my ear: “Get it together, Simba! You have a life! Go live it!”
I can live my life, I think. Even without her, I can live my life. I’ll miss her, always, but I can’t let her death be the thing that defines the rest of my days. I can pick up the pieces and go back—no, I can never go back. But I can go forward, build the rest of my future. I can love the way Storm always did, open and fearless, and I can live the way she wanted to, without hesitation. She’ll be with me, forever, the one I want to tell my life to first, the one who will shape my future without a word. She would want me to move forward, not forgetting her, but not letting her death be the thing that holds me back, either. I know it—I’ve known it for weeks. Sitting in an inflatable kiddie pool in the arms of the boy next door, I’m finally ready to keep living.
A large drop of rain hits my face, then another. It sprinkles my shoulders and splatters my hair. The rain falls, faster and faster, until Cameron jumps up. I nearly slide the rest of the way into the pool.
“Sorry,” he says. “I gotta cover my laptop.” He jogs to the garage.
I follow and reach the garage door just as he comes out, holding a tarp. Together, we drape it over the table, cocooning his laptop and the projector in its protection, securing it with bungee cords. The screen goes black, the light of the movie trapped under the plastic. We don’t bother unplugging the projector, though, and the movie keeps playing to an empty audience.
It’s raining even harder, the type of August rainstorm that’s neither warm nor cold, just fast and wet and intense. It’ll last only a few minutes, I know—already the deluge is starting to lighten up, the heaviest squall lasting only a minute. We stand under the garage overhang against the wall, but the rain hits us all the same, the roof offering very little protection.
We don’t move.
We’re standing so close. It’s dark and Cameron’s face is in shadow, the pale light from the back deck reflecting off the rainwater, creating an image that is altogether familiar and surreal. Water drips from his hair, trailing alongside his nose to his upper lip.
He stares at me just as I stare at him, and I wonder what he sees in the half-light. His chest moves steadily with deep, controlled breaths. He comes closer. My head tilts up as my gaze follows his.
The whole of the summer is rushing back, me and Cameron together, a team checking off items on a list. In June, it’d seemed impossible, these tasks Storm left behind, but here we are, at the end of summer, with only one thing left to do. I’m not ready for it to be over, want to cling to the last bit of Storm I have left. I tilt my head to the sky and let the rain pummel me.
1. Watch the sunrise.
2. Take pictures of EVERYTHING.
3. Get a tattoo.
4. Go inside a lighthouse.
5. Meet my soulmate. Fall in love.
6. Go skinny dipping.
7. Kiss in the rain.
8. Put a secret in a balloon & let it fly away.
9. Road trip!
10. Crash a wedding.
11. Go to a dive-in movie.
12. Speak in a British accent all day.
13. Sleep in the UNCW dorms.
14. Go parasailing.
15. Be brave with my life.
Be brave with my life. This summer, I started. I faced my fear of heights and jumped off the cliff. I rode the parachute to the end of the rope, floated above the ocean, Cameron at my side. Heights—one fear faced. But there is so much more, so many things I can do.
The list will never be done. As long as I am alive, moving forward, I will have Storm with me, her words etched on the last page of the journal and inked on my ribs, reminding me to be brave with my life. It’s not something I can do in one summer, or one year, or one decade. #15: Be brave with my life, is a number I can never check off, and there is something intensely comforting in that knowledge.
I look at Cameron. He’s watching me, face soft, apprehensive. With one step, I’m standing against him, my hand grasping his T-shirt. I pull him to me.
“Number seven?” he whispers.
I nod. “Number seven, and so much more,” I say.
My mouth meets his, a kiss that’s a promise. A promise to be brave with my life and with my heart. A promise of a thousand kisses to come. We stand there, arms wrapped around each other, lips connected, as the rain slows to a drizzle, the storm moving on as quickly as it came, and then we kiss a bit longer, until Cameron breaks away from me and disappears into the garage.
He’s gone only a moment, returning with the familiar old Polaroid in one hand, the list in the other. He hands the book to me, and I take it, but don’t open it. It’s the story of a summer, of a life, of a death. I’ll treasure it, look back on it in the future with fondness, remembering the list that changed everything. For now, I hold it tight, the cover sealed. I’m not ready to look back yet—don’t want to remember. I want to live now, here with Cameron, looking forward together. I tuck the book under the edge of the tarp, safe on the table, then take the camera from his hands.
We stand together, like we have for so many pictures this summer, with the pools and makeshift movie screen behind us. I hold the camera at arm’s length, and when Cameron leans down to kiss me, I click the shutter.
Together, we set our chairs upright. Then we lower into them, side by side, and watch as the photo develops.
Acknowledgments
To Ashley Maker, without whom Anna and Cameron’s story would still be sitting on my hard drive. Thank you so much for your endless encouragement, for reading drafts so fresh I didn’t even run spell-check, and for knowing my characters better than I do sometimes. You always know the exact right ways to make my books better, and you always give me the little nudges I need to do something with them. All the CPLove.
A massive THANK YOU to everyone behind Pitch Madness. Brenda Drake, for all the time you put into running such amazing contests, a million sparkly rainbows. Summer Heacock and Dee Romito, the fearless leaders of Team Rainbow Road, for pulling my little book out of the slush pile and giving it a chance, “thank you” isn’t enough. Here, have a unicorn. And to my fellow teammates, for all the e
ncouragement. You all are the best. #TeamRainbowRoad for life.
My amazing agent, Liza Fleissig: I’m pretty sure you love this book even more than I do. Your enthusiasm from day one has been spectacular, and I can’t imagine being in better hands. You are a champion.
Julie Matysik, editor extraordinaire, what would this book be without you? Thank you for loving my characters and my story. And even more for showing me where I went wrong and shaping this book into something so much better. T.L. Bonaddio, how did you manage to capture so much of my book in one amazing cover? What you’ve done is beautiful. The team at Running Press has been great to work with—thank you all for taking such good care of me. Special thanks to Kristin Kiser, Adrienne Szpyrka, Amber Morris, Susan Hom, Cassie Drumm, and Emily Epstein White.
My Montana Mythcreants writing group: you guys are the best. It is so great to have a group to hang with while I write, to keep me motivated, to laugh when things are hard. Thank you for all your support! And to the Great Falls Hastings Cafe staff. Every word of this book was written at your tables, and you were always so welcoming. I miss you.
Finally, and most important, to my family. Without your support, this never would have happened. Kelvin, most patient husband ever, thank you for dealing with the messy house and unwashed laundry and late nights. You are the best. And Connor, my favorite little man, you put up with so much while I was working on this book, and you never complained. How did I get so lucky? I love you, my boys.
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